What makes a good route
Before a route is ranked, we check its shape. Rides and runs face the same checks, and a route that fails any of them is left out, however green or quiet it is.
A good route brings you back to where you started without making you cover the same street twice. It heads out from the start rather than circling around it, so the start sits at its edge, not buried in the middle. It ranges widely, reaching out in many directions rather than running up one long corridor and back. And it flows: over any kilometre it keeps moving somewhere, rather than zigzagging through side streets to make up the distance.
How routes are ranked
Each route is measured along its own length: how much of it runs through nature, how quiet and how far from traffic it is, its longest unbroken stretch of nature, its views and how close it starts to a station. Rides also score their climbing. Rides and runs are weighted separately, by hand, and the weights are published here.
| Through nature | 30% |
|---|---|
| Views | 5% |
| Away from traffic | 30% |
| Longest nature stretch | 15% |
| Starts near a station | 20% |
| Through nature | 30% |
|---|---|
| Views | 5% |
| Away from traffic | 30% |
| Longest nature stretch | 15% |
| Climbing | 20% |
- Through nature
- How much of the route runs through parks, forests and along water.
- Views
- How much of it has open views.
- Away from traffic
- How much of it is on paths and streets with little or no car traffic.
- Longest nature stretch
- Its longest unbroken stretch of nature, as a share of the whole route. A gap shorter than 100 m does not break it.
- Starts near a station
- Full marks for starting right at a well connected station, falling to nothing 800 m away.
- Climbing
- Rides only: more climbing per km scores higher, up to 15 m per km.
How the best compare
To show how much better the routes on these pages are, we set them against a typical route: the one in the middle of the first route we build from every station and start, with half scoring higher and half lower. Only the starts that do well there get longer routes, so the middle of those first routes is the fair picture of the city. That is 19,752 runs and 268 rides in San Francisco.
Each row is one part of the score, out of 100%. Typical is the middle score of those first routes. On these pages is the middle score of the routes we chose: the best run in each district, and the best ride from each station at each distance.
| Typical | On these pages | |
|---|---|---|
| Through nature | 33% | 76% |
| Views | 10% | 23% |
| Away from traffic | 99% | 99% |
| Longest nature stretch | 18% | 64% |
| Starts near a station | 60% | 60% |
| Overall score | 55% | 77% |
| Typical | On these pages | |
|---|---|---|
| Through nature | 30% | 58% |
| Views | 12% | 18% |
| Away from traffic | 98% | 88% |
| Longest nature stretch | 13% | 14% |
| Climbing | 50% | 48% |
| Overall score | 51% | 58% |
| Without climbing, as cities are compared | 52% | 61% |
Where the routes start
Runs start at rail, metro and tram stations, spread out so they cover each district, with up to 10 per district. Each station gets a short test run, and the stations with the best test runs become starts.
Rides start at one station in each 3 km square of the city: a rail or metro station where there is one, else a tram stop, else any other station or bus stop, the one nearest the middle of the square. Each of those 22 stations gets a 20 km test ride, and the 3 with the best test rides, at least 6 km apart, become ride starts. From each we build rides of 20, 60 and 100 km.
OpenStreetMap does not map San Francisco's districts across the whole city, so these come from Who's On First, an open atlas of places.
After dark runs
An after dark run is lit along at least 60% of its whole length, going by the street lighting recorded in OpenStreetMap. Stretches with no record count as unlit, and a route only states how much of it is lit when lighting is recorded on at least 75% of it.
In San Francisco, lighting is recorded on 35% of the length of the runs we ranked. We offer after dark runs only above 50%, so there are none this month.
How long a route takes
Times assume a steady pace: 6 minutes per km running and 3 minutes per km riding. Your own pace will move them up or down.
Checked every month
Every route is built again each month on fresh map data, so a district's best run can change. 3 of 112 districts kept the best run they had on 18 October 2026.
This edition
Built 23 October 2026 by engine e871b298f,
map data version 11, foot line catalog 16, cycle line catalog 16: 4,272 requests, 41,625 routes, of which 17,252 ranked, from 2,324 stations screened.